Fear flutters in your belly as you mount the warbird, ready for your joust with the long lances of the opposition.

Each screen is made up of a series of ledges, or perches, which make flight to the top of the screen difficult. You must manipulate your bird through the spaces between the perches and keep it in flight by continually pressing the flap key or fire button on the joystick.

If you use the keyboard, the flap key will take a hell of a hammering and having to continually press the fire button on the joystick makes bird movement control almost impossible.

Real Time Software certainly went for realism when it designed the game. If you manage to knock a rider from a bird it will lay a green or blue egg. Pick it up and you are awarded extra points.

Don't wait too long, though. Birds drop eggs for a purpose and if you don't take action quickly something not pretty and very nasty could hatch.

Some of your fellow riders need a helping hard when they are unseated. They do not leave the screen and, being the kindly person you are, you score even more points for picking them up.

When you have knocked off your first screenful you begin a second quest - screen two - which is called Survival wave. It includes birds which are more agile and dragons which will kill with their fiery wings or breath.

If you manage to avoid all those monsters you will reach the Gladiator wave in which one mega-knight is your adversary. The mega-knight is the second player when the two-player game is in operation.

Although Knight Flight does not stretch the graphics capabilities of the QL to its limit, it is the first QL game we know of which uses both control ports for joysticks. It is a fast, playable version of the arcade favourite Joust, but could have had extra features which would make it even easier to play, such as a Pause option.